"Perpetuation of vendorlock"? You make it sound like they're doing something illegal. They have a product and are doing their best to compete in a very difficult/tight market. They have an obligation not to screw their shareholders or their customers. They owe absolutely _zero_ to a bunch of people who do nothing but bitch.
I've been pretty neutral on this whole issue -- I think the DeCSS case is pretty braindead on the part of the MPAA, but figured there wasn't a whole lot at stake.
I was wrong. When the same proerpty-protection is used to suppress two independent academic efforts devoted to the creation of knowledge and ability, I'm piqued.
As a student at a research-heavy institution (the home of Dr. Touretzky) I now must fear that the research that my colleagues and I pursue may unwittingly stumble onto the front lawn of a capitalist industry association with a shotgun and a vengeance. That's not just un-academic, that's unconstitutional.
Carnegie Mellon has a great wireless ethernet system. There are a few outdoor hubs so people lounging in Schenley park can enjoy internet access. It's geeky enough for me =)
It doesn't look like the iMac (good), but the OS does look a little like MacOS X. (That's also good.) It looks like a slick box. Sony has good style sensibilities.
I was about to go download X for my shiny new PowerBook (with MacOS X) when I asked myself: "what X apps do I use?" I thought for a while, and only two came to mind: the GIMP and AbiWord. I only use AbiWord for its Microsoft Word importing, and I only used the GIMP because there was no Photoshop.
That's the really cool thing about MacOS X: It has all of the UNIX-y goodness with all of the sexy OpenStep apps and all of the trusty MacOS apps.
Illegal in what way? It's their company and their software. They can make their home page the only page you can see with their browser if they want to. There's nothing illegal about it.
And how would it end in a Microsoftish way? They aren't a monopoly, and they aren't stifling any sort of competition.
He's been gotten by the crazy space-exploration people! Another scientist bites the dust.
Seriously, though I have a lot of friends who believe that our only hope is colonization. That leaves me quite uneasy. The scale of the necessary effort would be fantastic, and the implications for humanity are quite staggering--particularly if people go far enough away. It could result in a forking of the species. And people think forking the kernel is a bad thing. Wait until you're genetically incompatible with your girlfriend!
I think much of the "DARE program kids are more likely to take drugs" argument forgets the first rule learned in Statistics 101: Correlation does not imply causality.
Just because there is a relationship does not mean that the DARE program resulted in increased drug use. One counter-example is the proposition that those who take DARE are more high-risk kids, and will have a higher drug rate, regardless of DARE involvement.
It's a shame that nobody stepped up and seriously tried to buy the things. They're a pretty impressive infrastructure floating around in space that I'm sure could be used for _something_.
Ugh! Back in those nightmarish two years of my life (when I used Amigas), Guru Meditation Errors were daily rituals. I hated those boxes more than I have disliked any computer system (even Win95) since.
I consider myself to fall in the category of 'geek,' but I find anime to be mind-numbingly obnoxious.
And I don't feel that television has let me down, recently. It is actually making a comeback. Shows like (as Taco pointed out) That 70s Show, along with Family Guy, Law&Order, and even some 'teeniebopper' programs (Young Americans is a surprisingly delightful series) are bright sparks. I haven't given up on American media yet.
NeXT programming will be a valuable skill--I suspect that once the platform is shown to be viable, people will begin coding for Cocoa (the OpenStep libs) in earnest.
Some of the old NEXTSTEP programmers (the Omni Group, Stone design) are preparing large-scale ports of their OpenStep apps to MacOS X.
Alas, it looks like Sun has killed further development of the Lighthouse apps, so they won't show up on X. It's too bad--I'd rather use OpenWrite than MS Word on my Mac any day.
The community is somewhat divided over MacOS X. Some people are just glad to have the wonder OpenStep development environment back in any form. Others are upset about the lack of elegant integration that NEXTSTEP provided (Services, universal color managment, copy-paste of fonts, etc.)
The NeXT community survives on abandonware. A fantastic set of productivity apps (the Lighthouse Suite) was bought by Sun and basically given away. There are a whole bunch of other such apps. It's quite refreshing in that it keeps the old platform alive. I suspect people will always use the old platforms while there is software available, and abandonware (mostly legal) is the way to do it.
The question of illegal abandonware is a little more sticky. I suspect that most people are less queasy about trading abandoned apps than they are about currently available programs.
-- Max V.
Re:Used it, played with it, worked with it.
on
Looking Back At NeXT
·
· Score: 1
First of all, I think the concept of themes are ghastly. Call me undemocratic (and un-GNU), but I think that highly-paid HCI designers are far more capable of creating an effective and elegant UI than are a lot of Linux coders.
Aqua is nice. I used it a little bit a few months back. Prolonged exposure might get a little tiring, but the BeOS GUI gets tiring quickly as well.
The NS interface is timeless--I can use it for hours at a time and not get tired.
One of the things that I love most about NEXTSTEP is Display PostScript.
I can use a drawing tool (like the fantastic Virtuoso.app [FreeHand for the NeXT]), and I know for sure that what I see on the screen is _precisely_ what will end up coming out of the printer.
Other people talk about WYSIWYG, but the NeXTs give you _actual_ WYSIWYG. It's really impossible to comment on until used in person.
-- Max V.
Re:Used it, played with it, worked with it.
on
Looking Back At NeXT
·
· Score: 1
It does sounds like NS.
The UI, though, leaves me dizzy. It is nowhere near as simple and elegant as the Workspace and the Dock.
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"Perpetuation of vendorlock"? You make it sound like they're doing something illegal. They have a product and are doing their best to compete in a very difficult/tight market. They have an obligation not to screw their shareholders or their customers. They owe absolutely _zero_ to a bunch of people who do nothing but bitch.
--
Max V.
I've been pretty neutral on this whole issue -- I think the DeCSS case is pretty braindead on the part of the MPAA, but figured there wasn't a whole lot at stake.
I was wrong. When the same proerpty-protection is used to suppress two independent academic efforts devoted to the creation of knowledge and ability, I'm piqued.
As a student at a research-heavy institution (the home of Dr. Touretzky) I now must fear that the research that my colleagues and I pursue may unwittingly stumble onto the front lawn of a capitalist industry association with a shotgun and a vengeance. That's not just un-academic, that's unconstitutional.
To the ramparts, troops!
--
Max V.
Carnegie Mellon has a great wireless ethernet system. There are a few outdoor hubs so people lounging in Schenley park can enjoy internet access. It's geeky enough for me =)
--
Max V.
Goes to show, not all librarians are mean, red-headed Jewish women who insult innocent high school students.
--
Max V.
RPN is wonderful! After using my HP48 for years, it's very difficult to use any other calculator?
--
Max V.
It doesn't look like the iMac (good), but the OS does look a little like MacOS X. (That's also good.) It looks like a slick box. Sony has good style sensibilities.
--
Max V.
I was about to go download X for my shiny new PowerBook (with MacOS X) when I asked myself: "what X apps do I use?" I thought for a while, and only two came to mind: the GIMP and AbiWord. I only use AbiWord for its Microsoft Word importing, and I only used the GIMP because there was no Photoshop.
That's the really cool thing about MacOS X: It has all of the UNIX-y goodness with all of the sexy OpenStep apps and all of the trusty MacOS apps.
I don't need to download X!
--
Max V.
Illegal in what way? It's their company and their software. They can make their home page the only page you can see with their browser if they want to. There's nothing illegal about it. And how would it end in a Microsoftish way? They aren't a monopoly, and they aren't stifling any sort of competition.
--
Max V.
He's been gotten by the crazy space-exploration people! Another scientist bites the dust.
Seriously, though I have a lot of friends who believe that our only hope is colonization. That leaves me quite uneasy. The scale of the necessary effort would be fantastic, and the implications for humanity are quite staggering--particularly if people go far enough away. It could result in a forking of the species. And people think forking the kernel is a bad thing. Wait until you're genetically incompatible with your girlfriend!
--
Max V.
I think much of the "DARE program kids are more likely to take drugs" argument forgets the first rule learned in Statistics 101: Correlation does not imply causality.
Just because there is a relationship does not mean that the DARE program resulted in increased drug use. One counter-example is the proposition that those who take DARE are more high-risk kids, and will have a higher drug rate, regardless of DARE involvement.
--
Max V.
Why are you so angry at Apple? Have they ever done anything to you?
I'm always startled at the number of people who wan to see Apple wiped off the face of the earth.
Most people just need a good outlet for their frustration, and Apple has some trait or another that makes it an agreeable target.
--
Max V.
It's a shame that nobody stepped up and seriously tried to buy the things. They're a pretty impressive infrastructure floating around in space that I'm sure could be used for _something_.
--
Max V.
I think they expected the technology to work a lot better than it did.
It must have really sucked to be there for the first tests when they realized that their system was really crappy.
--
Max V.
My my. Aren't we protective?
I ran no pirated software and was otherwise very gentle.
I do know what a TSR is.
And I still think Amigas are crappy.
--
Max V.
Except for the multiprocessing bit, you have OpenStep nailed.
Look at how well it did.
(Yep, there's GNUStep. GNUStep is cool. Why do we need another GNUStep, then?)
--
Max V.
Ugh! Back in those nightmarish two years of my life (when I used Amigas), Guru Meditation Errors were daily rituals. I hated those boxes more than I have disliked any computer system (even Win95) since.
--
Max V.
Ada Lovelace. Thus the Ada programming language.
--
Max V.
I try my best.
--
Max V.
I consider myself to fall in the category of 'geek,' but I find anime to be mind-numbingly obnoxious.
And I don't feel that television has let me down, recently. It is actually making a comeback. Shows like (as Taco pointed out) That 70s Show, along with Family Guy, Law&Order, and even some 'teeniebopper' programs (Young Americans is a surprisingly delightful series) are bright sparks. I haven't given up on American media yet.
--
Max V.
NeXT programming will be a valuable skill--I suspect that once the platform is shown to be viable, people will begin coding for Cocoa (the OpenStep libs) in earnest.
Some of the old NEXTSTEP programmers (the Omni Group, Stone design) are preparing large-scale ports of their OpenStep apps to MacOS X.
Alas, it looks like Sun has killed further development of the Lighthouse apps, so they won't show up on X. It's too bad--I'd rather use OpenWrite than MS Word on my Mac any day.
The community is somewhat divided over MacOS X. Some people are just glad to have the wonder OpenStep development environment back in any form. Others are upset about the lack of elegant integration that NEXTSTEP provided (Services, universal color managment, copy-paste of fonts, etc.)
--
Max V.
The NeXT community survives on abandonware. A fantastic set of productivity apps (the Lighthouse Suite) was bought by Sun and basically given away. There are a whole bunch of other such apps. It's quite refreshing in that it keeps the old platform alive. I suspect people will always use the old platforms while there is software available, and abandonware (mostly legal) is the way to do it.
The question of illegal abandonware is a little more sticky. I suspect that most people are less queasy about trading abandoned apps than they are about currently available programs.
--
Max V.
First of all, I think the concept of themes are ghastly. Call me undemocratic (and un-GNU), but I think that highly-paid HCI designers are far more capable of creating an effective and elegant UI than are a lot of Linux coders.
Aqua is nice. I used it a little bit a few months back. Prolonged exposure might get a little tiring, but the BeOS GUI gets tiring quickly as well.
The NS interface is timeless--I can use it for hours at a time and not get tired.
--
Max V.
One of the things that I love most about NEXTSTEP is Display PostScript.
I can use a drawing tool (like the fantastic Virtuoso.app [FreeHand for the NeXT]), and I know for sure that what I see on the screen is _precisely_ what will end up coming out of the printer.
Other people talk about WYSIWYG, but the NeXTs give you _actual_ WYSIWYG. It's really impossible to comment on until used in person.
--
Max V.
It does sounds like NS.
The UI, though, leaves me dizzy. It is nowhere near as simple and elegant as the Workspace and the Dock.
--
Max V.
The prices range hugely. One Turbo Dimension cube went for $1500 on eBay.
I got my first cube for $100, but stations are basically free around here.
It just depends on where you are.
--
Max V.